ABSTRACT
My description of the general course of drawing development has highlighted the creative and inventive nature of the child’s early representational efforts. Experimenting with the medium, children construct, quite independently, their first graphic models. In this sense, each child can be seen as an original artist even though others have produced drawings and paintings that bear a striking resemblance to the youngster’s work. As the previous chapters have documented, certain formal-structural features characterize all early representations, and they define what is commonly known as “child art.” Some authors perceive a discontinuity between child and adult art (Cizek, 1936; Wilson & Wilson, 1977, 1982b), but others have tended to see child art as a precursor of adult art-making, an important phase in the evolution of the mature artist (Arnheim, 1974; Gardner, 1980; Pariser, 1987; Schaefer-Simmern, 1948; Winner, 1982).
